Breamore, Hampshire
Review
The Anglo-Saxon invaders establish themselves in Britain
In the late third century, the Picts and Hibernian Scots in the north and west were joined in increasingly serious acts of piracy and raids upon the coasts of Britannia by Germanic people of tribes known as Angles, Jutes and Saxons from the Baltic and the Frisian coast area of the North Sea. Romano-British forts were erected along the ‘Saxon Shore’ and, for a time, they successfully repelled the brigands and pirates. However, as Roman rule in Britannia collapsed in the early fifth century, the Germanic raids from Europe flared up again. Although there is no evidence that the raiding parties ever joined forces to become a single military force, it appears the British defenders were unable to put up much resistance.
Timeline
430 Pagan immigrants, Saxons supposedly led by Hengist and Horsa, begin to settle in Kent as ‘protectors’ of the (Romano-Celtic) British.
447-50 Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frieslanders join the earlier settlers in the south and begin the wholesale colonisation of eastern and southern Britannia. They eventually form several small kingdoms but eventually become collectively known as the Anglelanders or English.
